


Drachma

by Tyranno



Series: but I wore his jacket for the longest time. [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Confessions, Gen, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Kavinsky did not have a good childhood. act shocked, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past, trauma discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22971337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyranno/pseuds/Tyranno
Summary: Gansey hadn’t realised how tightly he had been holding the coffee cup until Kavinsky stopped. His hands were pink and painful from the heat and he set the cup down.Kavinsky’s eyes were dry and blank. He watched Gansey dispassionately, “Do you want me to stop?”Gansey shook his head sharply. “Tell me what happened next,” he asked.
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky & Richard Gansey III, Joseph Kavinsky/Adam Parrish
Series: but I wore his jacket for the longest time. [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646647
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	Drachma

**Author's Note:**

> Penultimate fic. one more after this one ✌️

> “All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name,”

― Hunter S. Thompson, _Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga_

* * *

Gansey lifted Kavinsky’s head off the floor, hand under Kavinsky’s cheek, and pulled out the block of cocaine from under his chin. Kavinsky knew it was him even though his eyes were sealed shut, because Ronan always lifted him by the collar like he was a dog, Noah passed his hand straight through Kavinsky’s head like he was made of water, and Blue and Adam did not touch him when he was asleep.

Gradually, Kavinsky managed to part his eyelids. It took even longer for Gansey to come into focus. He was standing at the sink, his hair brushed away from his face with his fingers, his soft hazel eyes watching his hands as he rolled up his sleeves. With a kitchen knife, Gansey sliced through the thin plastic and released a stream off snow-white powder into the water streaming down the sink. Gansey watched it clump up the water and stick in chunks to the metal sides. He moved the tap around, washing nearly $30,000 worth of pure cocaine down the sink.

The water shut off. Gansey hung there; hands rested on the sides of the sink.

“Would you have relapsed,” Gansey asked, voice tired and low, “if you’d woken up before I’d gotten here?”

Kavinsky felt like death. He was hardly human at that point. It took him a while to remember how to move his mouth in such a way to produce words: “Probably.”

Gansey glanced at him. Gansey’s eyes were ringed with pink and had lines under his eyelashes, like early wrinkles. He unrolled his sleeves, re-buttoning the cuffs.

Kavinsky wanted to apologise. But he couldn’t quite manage it. He set his head back on the cold floor and closed his eyes.

Gansey made coffee. He had never been into coffee before Kavinsky had introduced it to him, the dark, rich expresso like a shot of night. It made him feel like a proper adult. He dropped the old grounds into the food waste bin and washed the filter. The grinder shook the work surface, clattering like a washing machine full of forks and spoons instead of clothes.

Kavinsky rolled his face across the floor, trying to press life into it. There was a dull ache in the back of his neck and his molar teeth. He wanted to cough but breathed instead, tasting sweat and dust. His body was dead to him. He gritted his teeth together.

Gansey set two expressos onto a tray and sat down in front of Kavinsky, “Can you get up?”

Kavinsky pushed himself up with shaking arms. Gansey set the tray between them.

“Kavinsky… I don’t know enough about Dreaming,” Gansey said, “but didn’t you say you always chose what you brought out with you? Are you choosing to bring coke out with you?”

“That…,” Kavinsky’s eyes were dark and empty. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist, “That wasn’t quite true.”

“Could you explain it to me?” Gansey asked. Steam swirled under his chin, “I want to understand.”

Kavinsky picked up a coffee cup and his hands shook a little, “I would have to tell you the whole thing. The whole truth.”

Gansey waited.

“Alright,” Kavinsky breathed in the smell of his expresso, shoulders sinking slightly, “Alright, I suppose… I suppose…”

Gansey watched him, “I promise I won’t judge you.”

Kavinsky massaged his eyeballs, “My mother was a Dream Thief, like I am; that was how she got the attention of the Mutri. But she wasn’t very good at it. See, what I think is—a Thief is an entirely different creature to a Greywaren. A Greywaren is much more, I don’t know, conscious of what they are taking out, they can talk to the ley line, they can maybe make friends with it and ask permission. Or whatever gay shit Lynch is doing. Technically, I should be the one getting random shit in my sleep, and Lynch should be getting the designer shit and golden rings—but nobody accused Lynch of having his damn life together.”

Kavinsky took a small sip of his coffee, swirling it around his teeth.

“A Dream Thief gets what they want most, so long as it’s pretty small,” Kavinsky said, “and nobody gets to choose what they want. My mother had a good life, she had strict but loving parents, she had a successful career; what she woke up with were diamond necklaces, roses and bottles of perfume. Even when the Mutri _encouraged_ her, the most useful things she came out with were inch-long pearl handled knives, a small, woman’s pistol. She wasn’t much for violence. So they released her and sent my father in as a Honeytrap.”

Gansey watched him. The coffee cup was warming his fingers uncomfortably and he shifted his grip.

“Me, me… I was good, much better. A child wants for so much,” Kavinsky said, “a child is made of wanting. And under their... _persistent guidance,_ what I _wanted_ morphed from teddy bears and picture books—to hunting knives and machine guns and hand grenades and razor blades. I was a child-sized factory, every morning I vomited up contraband for them, scalpels, gun cartridges, whips, baseball bats. And every night they gave me more reasons to want revenge.”

Gansey hadn’t realised how tightly he had been holding the coffee cup until Kavinsky stopped. His hands were pink and painful from the heat and he set the cup down.

Kavinsky’s eyes were dry and blank. He watched Gansey dispassionately, “Do you want me to stop?”

Gansey shook his head sharply. “Tell me what happened next,” he asked.

“What happened next was: I went wild,” Kavinsky waved a hand, “they thought they had a chained-up dog, but I was a wolf. I knew what they were doing, using my own creations against me. The thing is, what I wanted became more than just a long knife or a snub-nosed pistol. What I wanted was just destruction. And when you want something so big and so badly, you can pare it down, you can sharpen it as you sleep, and you can cut your heart apart until you convince yourself one thing _only_ will bring you peace.”

Kavinsky drank his coffee. He perked up in measures, his eyes opening more than just halfway. He breathed out, “Ah, Richard. You should have been there. If there was anything to make you believe in a devil…” He set the coffee down.

“What did you bring out?” Gansey asked. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

“What I brought out would put Lynch’s little night terrors to shame and I drained the whole of the Svilengrad line to do it: Wolves with six heads, snakes with knife-like fangs, lions with armoured plates,” Kavinsky’s eyes were dark and warm, “God, it was incredible. They listened to me, only, and they broke my collar open and pulled my chains from the walls. I was evil. I was the King of Beasts and I had my Kingdom.”

Gansey breathed out thinly. He could imagine it, with Kavinsky looking at him like that. He imagined Kavinsky shorter and bloodier, his small figure dwarfed by the great hulking shapes around him, the long black fangs and the fire-bright eyes. Lions’ flanks pushed at him as he walked, the cool noise of scales sliding around his feet, the click of claws on stone.

“I killed three, four men, mauled even more. I was close to fainting, but there was an old man who turned out to be my grandfather,” Kavinsky said, “he, I wanted to kill most of all. I wanted to do it myself, I wanted to grow fangs and tear his throat out.”

“Did you—…” Gansey closed his eyes, “What… what happened?”

“He snapped his fingers,” Kavinsky said, “and called my bluff.”

Gansey’s brows furrowed.

“He shot my lion through the neck and stabbed my wolf. He crushed the skulls of my snakes beneath his iron boots,” Kavinsky said, “if I had been a Greywaren, they would not have died unless I allowed it. But I was a cheap fraud. The animals were weak as I was.”

“And then?” Gansey asked, thickly.

Kavinsky shook his head, “I had destroyed the ley line. A thief can’t just pull and pull forever, not like a Greywaren can. A thief is a leech. So they sent me to live with my father, in case they had another use for me later.”

There was a silence. Kavinsky drank his coffee. An air of tiredness hang over him.

“And the drugs?” Gansey prompted.

“My father wanted me sedated and distracted,” Kavinsky said, “Well, most of the time. He’d heard about the wolves and the lions and he had good furniture to protect. That, and he knew he was giving me lots of good reasons to want revenge. They weren’t all bad: they stopped the nightmares and kept my mind blank.”

Gansey was quiet. He looked down at his cooling coffee, “How old were you?”

“When I came to America?” Kavinsky raised an eyebrow, “Oh, seven, maybe eight. Why?”

Gansey looked hopeless. He looked like someone had popped a balloon in him, and he was slowly deflating. He shook his head, “No reason. No reason.”

*

Later, much later, Kavinsky let himself into the St. Agnes apartment. The building was cold and dark, like a tomb. He hadn’t lied to Gansey when he’d said, months ago now, that he wouldn’t mind telling him the details. But after the memories were kicked up, he could feel them itching around him, like he had kicked up embers that fizzled on his skin. It had been so long ago, now. The memories had sunk in him like heavy stones.

“Hey,” Adam said, when he saw Kavinsky pad into the bedroom. He moved the covers away, so Kavinsky could come into bed.

Kavinsky pulled off his shoes and threw his jacket on the floor. He crawled into the warmth, wrapping his arms around Adam. Adam hummed, pulling him closer. He had obviously been asleep before Kavinsky had come and his body was still sleep-warm and relaxed.

“Did you say something weird to Gansey?” Adam murmured into Kavinsky’s shoulder.

“Maybe. Why?”

“He was acting kind of jumpy all day,” Adam said, “and he grimaced when I mentioned you. What did you say?”

Kavinsky stared at the wall over Adam’s shoulder, “It’s personal.”

If Adam asked again, Kavinsky decided, he would tell him. If he pushed Kavinsky on this, Kavinsky would fold. Unbidden, he would confess things Gansey hadn’t even thought to ask. He would tell Adam about the taste of blood in his mouth, the screams he’d heard, the black tracks he left on the floor. All the horrors he had seen and suffered and committed. And Adam would know, finally, what sort of creature he lay against, what sort of beast he’d brought home.

But Adam only murmured something unintelligible and shifted, slightly, so he could rest his face against Kavinsky’s neck. His warm breath ghosted his skin as he fell back asleep.


End file.
